WILLIAM CORDOVA
B. 1969

william cordova is interested in the ephemeral visuality of transition and displacement, how objects and perception change and adapt within time and space. Moving from his hometown of Lima to Miami at an early age, and briefly living in Houston, Chicago, and New York City, cordova integrates the cultural nuances and histories from these environments within his work. Afro-Peruvian cosmology, Andean architecture, and metaphysics deeply influence cordova’s work, intersecting and merging with contemporary visual languages. Utilizing a variety of materials, including found and discarded objects, feathers, collage, and other reclaimed detritus, cordova’s multimedia practice weaves coded statements on contemporary social systems and economies within the personal history of objects, challenging the functionality of art as a purely aesthetic pursuit.

william cordova (b. Lima, Peru in 1969) graduated with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996 and went on to earn an MFA from Yale University in 2004. He has been awarded the Creative Capital Grant (2024), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant (2021), and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2011). cordova has participated in numerous artist residencies including Artpace, San Antonio, TX; The Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine; and American Academy in Berlin, Germany.

Notable solo exhibitions include can’t stop, won’t stop: tenets of southern alchemy, Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA (2023); on the lower frequencies I speak 4 U, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD (2022); and his first major survey show, now’s the time: narratives of southern alchemy, Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2018). cordova has organized and presented curatorial projects at Project Row Houses, Houston, TX (2024) and The LeRoy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University, NY (2022). His work is included in the collections of the Ellipse Foundation, Cascais, Portugal; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; La Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru; NSU Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; and Yale University, New Haven, CT, among others.

C.V. (PDF)